We piled into the gondola, the three of us crammed together, and as the cart lifted off the ground, Olive pressed her face to the bars, squealing with delight. Madison sat stiff beside me at first, clutching the rail, until the breeze picked up and the view opened out across Wisteria Creek.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I said quietly.
She turned to look, the tension in her shoulders softening as she took in the patchwork of fields, rooftops, and the shimmer of the creek beyond. “Yeah. It really is.”
For a moment, it felt like the world shrank around us, the hum of the fair below, Olive’s laughter, and the warmth of Madison’s shoulder brushing mine.
Later, Olive dragged us from booth to booth, her little hand darting between mine and Madison’s, anchoring us together whether we liked it or not. She squealed when she won a stuffed bear at the ring toss, mostly thanks to me, and insisted I carry it for her. Madison shook her head, laughing at the sight of me with a ridiculous pink bear tucked under my arm.
“You’re not as scary as you want people to think,” she teased.
“Don’t tell anyone,” I muttered, but I couldn’t keep the smile from tugging at the corners of my mouth.
We ended the day with ice cream, Olive’s cheeks sticky with chocolate, Madison’s hair mussed by the breeze, and me feeling something I hadn’t in a long time, at ease. Like I belonged.
Walking back to the truck, Olive asleep in my arms, Madison glanced up at me. Her voice was soft, almost lost in the night air. “You’re good with her, you know. With both of us.”
I swallowed hard, shifting Olive gently against my chest. “Don’t get used to it.”
But the truth settled heavily inside me; I wanted her to.
Chapter 29
Madison
By the time we got back from the fair, Olive was asleep before I even turned the key in the door of the guesthouse. Her little body sagged against me, heavy with the pure exhaustion that only comes after a day of sugar, sunshine, and excitement.
I laid her gently in bed, tucking Bunny under her arm, brushing the chocolate smudge from her cheek with my thumb. She didn’t stir, just sighed and curled deeper into her blanket.
For a moment, I stood there watching her breathe. This, her peace, her safety, was what I fought for every single day. And tonight, I had Seth Cunningham to thank for it.
That thought unsettled me more than it should have.
Back in the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of water and sank onto the couch, my body humming with a mixture of fatigue and something warmer, sharper. The day replayed in flashes, the Ferris wheel swaying gently as the town stretched out below us. Seth’s steady voice pointing out landmarks like it was the most natural thing in the world, and the way Olive had slipped her hand into his without hesitation.
And then there was the look on his face when he carried that ridiculous pink bear for her, deadpan serious, even as people laughed. That image kept tugging a smile out of me long after the moment passed.
He had surprised me. No, more than that, he had disarmed me.
The Seth I’d grown up with, the one who scowled through school assemblies and rolled his eyes at Blair’s friends, was grumpy and guarded and impossible to crack. But today, at the fair, I saw glimpses of something else. A man who could laugh, who could soften, who could let a little girl climb into his world and call him hers without hesitation.
And that scared me.
Because every time someone had gotten close to me, they’d left. My father. The boy I thought I loved at sixteen. Even the stability of my home was shaken when the storm tore through it. Nothing ever stayed.
So why should I believe Seth Cunningham would?
I stretched out on the couch, staring at the ceiling, the hum of crickets drifting in through the open window. My chest ached with the weight of it all, the gratitude, the fear, the pull I didn’t want to name.
He was dangerous in ways I hadn’t expected. Not because he’d hurt me intentionally, but because he was starting to show me how it felt to lean on someone again. To laugh with someone. To feel… safe.
And that kind of feeling was the hardest to walk away from.
When I finally dragged myself to bed, the image of him carrying Olive through the fairgrounds stayed with me. The little girl I loved more than anything in the world had already let him in.
The question was whether I could risk doing the same.
Chapter 30
